Publications
Published in SIGMA 17 (2021) 073, 83 pages ❱
Authors: Daniele Colosi (ENES-Morelia-UNAM), Robert Oeckl (CCM-UNAM)
Year: 2021
Massive Klein-Gordon theory is quantized on a timelike hyperplane in Minkowski space using the framework of general boundary quantum field theory. In contrast to previous work, not only the propagating sector of the phase space is quantized, but also the evanescent sector, with the correct physical vacuum. This yields for the first time a description of the quanta of the evanescent field alone. The key tool is the novel α-Kähler quantization prescription based on a ∗-twisted observable algebra. The spatial evolution of states between timelike hyperplanes is established and turns out to be non-unitary if different choices are made for the quantization ambiguity for initial and final hyperplane. Nevertheless, a consistent notion of transition probability is established also in the non-unitary case, thanks to the use of the positive formalism. Finally, it is shown how a conducting boundary condition on the timelike hyperplane gives rise to what we call the Casimir state. This is a pseudo-state which can be interpreted as an alternative vacuum and which gives rise to a sea of particle pairs even in this static case.
Authors: Robert Oeckl
Year: 2021
Massive Klein-Gordon theory is quantized on the timelike hypercylinder in Minkowski space. Crucially, not only the propagating, but also the evanescent sector of phase space is included, laying in this way foundations for a quantum scattering theory of fields at finite distance. To achieve this, the novel α-Kähler quantization scheme is employed in the framework of general boundary quantum field theory. A potential quantization ambiguity is fixed by stringent requirements, leading to a unitary radial evolution. Formulas for building scattering amplitudes and correlation functions are exhibited.
Authors: Juan Orendain
Year: 2021
This is the second installment of a two part series of papers studying free globularly generated double categories. We introduce the canonical double projection construction. The canonical double projection translates information from free globularly generated double categories to double categories defined through the same set of globular and vertical data. We use the canonical double projection to define compatible formal linear functorial extensions of the Haagerup standard form and the Connes fusion operation to possibly-infinite index morphisms between factors. We use the canonical double projection to prove that the free globularly generated double category construction is left adjoint to decorated horizontalization. We thus interpret free globularly generated double categories as formal decorated analogs of double categories of quintets and as generators for internalizations.
Authors: Adamantia Zampeli, Georgios E. Pavlou, Petros Wallden
Year: 2022
In the histories formulation of quantum theory, sets of coarse-grained histories, that are called consistent, obey classical probability rules. It has been argued that these sets can describe the semi-classical behaviour of closed quantum systems. Most physical scenarios admit multiple different consistent sets and one can view each consistent set as a separate context. Using propositions from different consistent sets to make inferences leads to paradoxes such as the contrary inferences first noted by Kent [Physical Review Letters, 78(15):2874, 1997]. Proponents of the consistent histories formulation argue that one should not mix propositions coming from different consistent sets in making logical arguments, and that paradoxes such as the aforementioned contrary inferences are nothing else than the usual microscopic paradoxes of quantum contextuality as first demonstrated by Kochen and Specker theorem. In this contribution we use the consistent histories to describe a macroscopic (semi-classical) system to show that paradoxes involving contextuality (mixing different consistent sets) persist even in the semi-classical limit. This is distinctively different from the contextuality of standard quantum theory, where the contextuality paradoxes do not persist in the semi-classical limit. Specifically, we consider different consistent sets for the arrival time of a semi-classical wave packet in an infinite square well. Surprisingly, we get consistent sets that disagree on whether the motion of the semi-classical system, that started within a subregion, ever left that subregion or not. Our results point to the need for constraints, additional to the consistency condition, to recover the correct semi-classical limit in this formalism and lead to the motto `all consistent sets are equal’, but `some consistent sets are more equal than others’.
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